IN BRIEF

On Thursday afternoon, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt finally tendered his resignation due to an endless stream of ethics complaints. He noted that the “unrelenting attacks on me personally” and on his family had “taken a sizable toll on us all.” And that is a fact beyond dispute.

From the moment Pruitt was nominated for the position of EPA chief he faced an onslaught of unrelenting attacks from the Left. Outside of Trump himself, no one in his administration was more despised and more of a political target than was Pruitt. He came into the most hallowed of leftist agencies preaching Trump’s deregulation message, and he quickly got to work acting on it. Pruitt’s mission was to roll back the abusive regulatory overreach from an agency that Barack Obama had used as a battering ram against Americans’ individual property rights and business development. But one does not do such things to the sacred agency of the environment without a vicious counterattack.

Unfortunately, Pruitt was not prepared for the laser-focused Leftmedia scrutiny that was designed not to merely report on his leadership but to exploit any ethically questionable misstep, no matter how insignificant, as a means of seeing him removed. And Pruitt certainly made his share of missteps, albeit few of which in and of themselves proved truly scandalous. Instead, it was more a case of death by a thousand paper cuts.

However, an overall review of Pruitt’s short tenure at the EPA reveals a legacy that conservatives should look upon positively. Pruitt worked to tame one of the biggest swamp creatures of the Obama-era, and he did so successfully. We hope his predecessor will have comparable results while avoiding needless self-inflicted wounds.

The Left’s hate rhetoric against Donald Trump was manifest again this week during a group’s late-night visit to Whataburger in San Antonio, Texas, where an incendiary confrontation involving a teenaged victim occurred. A member of the group filmed an anti-Trumper with serious anger issues as he threw a drink in the kid’s face and took his “Make America Great Again” hat from the victim’s head. All the while, the perpetrator unleashed an avalanche of expletives. “You ain’t supporting s—t n—r, little b—h a—s motherf—r,” he yelled, adding, “This is going to go great in my f—g fireplace, b—h!”

This is the latest episodic outcome of Demo Rep. Maxine Waters’s ignoble incitement of hateful confrontation to “get out and … create a crowd,” “push back” and “tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!”

Mission accomplished?

As for the victim, in a post-incident interview he maturely stated, “I support my president, and if you don’t, let’s have a conversation about it instead of ripping my hat off. I just think a conversation about politics is more productive … than taking my hat and yelling subjective words to me.” He also should be commended for his calm demeanor during the ordeal, which is clearly evident in the video. That’s far more than we can say for the “Party of Tolerance.”

FEATURED ANALYSIS

Live by the pen and phone, die by the pen and phone. This week, President Donald Trump’s administration undid yet more malfeasance perpetrated under the previous regime’s rule-by-fiat. And leftists are losing their minds. Again.

We start with education admissions practices. One of the most exciting days in a parent’s life is that day a letter comes from the college of their child’s choice — a letter stating that, yes, that child has been accepted into the next incoming freshman class. Unfortunately, some students don’t make this cut due to insufficient grades, test scores, extracurricular activities or other less objective factors.

But when the students in question are academically superior and natural leaders and yet are denied admission when more ordinary students are being accepted because of their race or economic status, that clear-cut discrimination is cause for action. In some cases, aggrieved students — with the aid of an advocacy group — have filed suit. One of these, a lawsuit by a group of Asian-American students, targets Harvard University with a discrimination claim that even the school found to be true through its own investigation. Even so, Harvard continued to downgrade Asian-American applicants anyway — ironically, in the name of “diversity.” Documents unsealed as part of the Harvard suit revealed that the school used a subjective, personality-based rating system to artificially lower the number of Asian-Americans admitted.

That case could eventually be heard by the Supreme Court, but in the meantime it’s prompted the Trump administration, led by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, to act. This impetus accompanied an earlier executive order from President Trump directing government agencies to scrap wherever possible such guidance as spelled out in the infamous “Dear Colleague” letters administered during Barack Obama’s administration. These executive end-runs were little more than edicts and coercions aimed at institutions of higher learning and lacking legislative input. Their goal? To create a more “diverse” student population solely based on race and economic status.

The rescission of Obama’s direction that diversity is “a compelling state interest” generally means a return to George W. Bush-era policy, which held that the factors of race and economic status should be a last resort in promoting a diverse student body. As Robby Soave at Reason opined, the Bush approach “was consistent with Supreme Court precedent that has permitted affirmative action but narrowly limited its use.”

These admissions regulations were among the biggest changes made by the rescission of 24 previous guidance documents, a decision Sessions announced Tuesday. “The American people deserve to have their voices heard and a government that is accountable to them,” he said. “When issuing regulations, federal agencies must abide by constitutional principles and follow the rules set forth by Congress and the President.”

“In previous administrations, however, agencies often tried to impose new rules on the American people without any public notice or comment period, simply by sending a letter or posting a guidance document on a website. That’s wrong, and it’s not good government,” explained Sessions as part of a release accompanying the list of rescissions. “In the Trump administration, we are restoring the rule of law. That’s why in November I banned this practice at the Department and we began rescinding guidance documents that were issued improperly or that were simply inconsistent with current law,” the AG concluded.

In all, the count of Obama-era guidance documents rescinded is now 49, and Sessions and Co. aren’t through yet. “The [DOJ Regulatory Reform] Task Force is continuing its review of existing guidance documents to repeal, replace, or modify,” Sessions added.

Since the Sessions announcement had the effect of a classic Friday afternoon document dump (coming as it did on the day before a holiday), the caterwauling from the Left wasn’t quite as pronounced — but it was there. Leading the charge was the ACLU, with its Racial Justice Program director Dennis Parker using the occasion to take a gratuitous swipe at Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — who was nowhere to be found in the Sessions release.

Meanwhile, ACLU National Political Director Faiz Shakir played the good old-fashioned race card: “This move from Attorney General Sessions is a concrete signal that there is a war being waged on civil liberties from the highest levels of government,” Shakir whined. “This is another attack by Sessions and President Trump on people of color.” Ironically, Shakir is the son of Pakistani immigrants and attended … Harvard.

Clearly, the greatest lack of diversity on college campuses is the dearth of conservative thought. If these institutions of higher learning are genuinely interested in diversity, they should strive to include among their faculty and staff viewpoints that aren’t strictly held by the Left.

Almost There

Since 1996, your generosity and commitment have made it possible to offer The Patriot Post without a subscription fee to conservatives around the nation. Today we are working to close out The Patriot Fund’s Independence Day Campaign that funds our mission and daily operations through the summer. If you haven’t already done so, please help us continue putting the Right perspective into your inbox every week and make your donation today. Any amount, large or small, makes a difference. From our team of editors and staff, thank you for making this work possible. —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor

OPINION IN BRIEF

David Harsanyi: “If you’re under the impression that the system exists merely to facilitate your partisan agenda, it’s not surprising that you also believe it’s broken every time things don’t go your way. This is why so many Democrats argue that we should ‘fix’ the Electoral College when they lose a presidential election and ‘fix’ the filibuster when they run the Senate and now ‘fix’ the Supreme Court when they don’t run the Senate. During the Obama presidency, liberal pundits groused about the supposed crisis posed by a ‘dysfunctional’ Congress. … Now, if the majority of voters had been truly disgusted by ‘obstructionism,’ the GOP would have paid a political price for its actions. The opposite occurred. Perhaps instinctively, voters wanted a more ideologically balanced Washington. So Democrats decided the system was the problem. What we call ‘norm breaking’ these days was referred to as ‘reform’ during the Obama administration. ‘Reformers’ … persuaded Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid … to use the ‘nuclear option’ and blow up Senate rules on judicial filibusters so Obama could stack the courts. … But then the unanticipated began happening. For one thing, the GOP won the majority, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, despite immense pressure, refused to give Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, a vote. … This tactic opened a seat for the next president. Then Donald Trump also won. Unexpectedly. And guess what’s broken now. … Maybe it’s not the system that’s broken but rather the Left’s agenda.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “If the American Revolution had produced nothing but the Declaration of Independence, it would have been worthwhile. … These words are more revolutionary than anything written by Robespierre, Marx, or Lenin, more explosive than the atom, a continual challenge to ourselves as well as an inspiration to the oppressed of all the world.” —Samuel Eliot Morison (1887-1976)

Sage advice: “EPA is the Holy Sepulchre of progressive politics, and [Scott] Pruitt posed an existential threat to command and control regulation that is the hallmark of the left’s environmental agenda. Mr. Pruitt had to avoid even the hint of an ethical question, and he should have been walking around Federal Triangle handcuffed to a general counsel. … The shame is that Mr. Trump is losing his bravest deregulator. … Fresh off its Pruitt defenestration, the left will be looking for new targets, so some advice to the rest of the Trump cabinet: Fly coach.” —The Wall Street Journal

Dezinformatsiya: “Scott Pruitt eyed as a possible future Senate candidate in oil- and gas-dependent Oklahoma, where many Republicans are more focused on what they consider his accomplishments at the EPA than on allegations about his ethics.” —Associated Press (Translation: Many Republicans were more focused on Pruitt’s accomplishments than the Leftmedia’s witch hunt against him.)

Braying Jackass: “On this Fourth of July, I refuse to let Donald Trump have the flag of the United States as his own. I refuse to have the Pledge of Allegiance to that flag, which for me harkens to boyhood civics lessons, and U.S. citizenship ceremonies, and the camaraderie for our military, sullied by the jingoism and divisions of our present national leaders. I refuse to have the Star-Spangled Banner used as a cudgel against principled speech. I refuse to let the best of this nation be debased and weaponized against truth and justice. I refuse to bow to cynicism.” —Dan Rather

Non Compos Mentis: “I stopped going to the gym because of Trump. Now I can’t open jars.” —Guardian columnist Brigid Delaney

And last… “Democrats [are] so opposed to Scott Pruitt … you’d think he once turned a river orange with millions of gallons of mine wastewater.” —Twitter satirist @hale_razor

Join our editors and staff in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of Liberty, and for their families. We also humbly ask prayer for your Patriot team, that our mission would seed and encourage the spirit of Liberty in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis

Nate Jackson, Managing Editor
Mark Alexander, Publisher

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